Plimhimmon Hotel photograph collection

When the Plimhimmon Hotel on the beach front in Ocean City, Maryland was founded by Mrs. Rosalie Tilghman Shreve, it was one of only three hotels on the beach, the others being the Atlantic and the Seaside. Mrs. Shreve was a Civil War widow who ran a boarding house at Franklin and St. Paul Streets in Baltimore during the winter, and operated the Goldsborough Cottage at Ocean City in the summer. Encouraged by her success with the cottage, she built the Plimhimmon Hotel at some time circa 1890. The name "Plimhimmon" came from the family estate of Mrs. Shreve's father, Gen. Tench Tilghman, at Oxford, Maryland.

According to Mrs. Edward R. Willcox (the granddaughter of Mrs. Shreve), to reach Ocean City from Baltimore at the turn of the 20th century required taking a steam ship across the Chesapeake Bay, then a train ride across Eastern Maryland out to Ocean City. The trip took 6 ½ hours. Mrs. Willcox points out that in those days the season for beach visits was shorter, the island being completely deserted between Labor Day and mid-June. During the summer months, people did more talking, eating, dancing to live orchestras, and card playing than swimming. The beaches were unguarded and the bathhouses were only open from 11 am to 1 pm. Amusement concessions located at the end of the boardwalk included a merry-go-round, shooting galleries, and games.

Early in the 20th century, rooms at the Plimhimmon Hotel, which had electricity and a bath on every floor, rented for $2.50 per day. Meals were copious, multi-course affairs, starting with a generous breakfast, then a three-course mid-day meal, then a "light supper" which might include "broiled spring chicken, corn fritters, butterfish, cold ham, oysters poullette, hominy grits, peas, potatoes, grilled apples, rolls, corn-pone cake and peaches".